Multi Vendor Marketplace Ecommerce Blog

The Beginner’s Guide to Starting an Online Marketplace Business

May 24, 2019

multimerch beginners guide to starting an online marketplace business

As the founder of MultiMerch, I've seen my share of online marketplaces start with a promising idea, fail to generate traction and close down shortly after.

The reasons are all over the place – no market need, unsustainable business model, poor software choices, lack of marketing, you name it.

In this guide, you'll learn how to start a marketplace business – from doing market research and choosing the right business model to mastering operations, selecting software and building, launching and growing your marketplace platform.

But first...

Create variable products using MultiMerch product variations

May 22, 2019

multimerch product variations sharing

Today, I'm happy to introduce a brand new system of product variations for MultiMerch-powered marketplaces.

You can now enable your sellers to create variable products with individual prices and quantities per product variation.

Use seller properties to create custom signup forms in MultiMerch

May 21, 2019

multimerch seller properties sharing

As a marketplace owner, you know how crucial a streamlined signup experience is for sellers joining your platform.

Up until now, MultiMerch has offered a basic set of fields for sellers to fill out during registration – including their store name, profile images and business information.

Today, I want to introduce Seller Properties – a new system that allows platform owners to create different sets of seller fields for different seller groups and display them during registration.

How To Make Your Online Marketplace Stand Out And Beat The Competition

May 7, 2019

make your marketplace stand out header

The advent of online marketplaces has helped small businesses and entrepreneurs sell their products for decades. You don't have to set up your own online store, you've got a ready-made channel to sell your products, and the ability to operate around the clock means small businesses can scale fast.

However, with more possibilities, comes more competition. To make sure your platform connects with sellers in the most powerful way possible, you need to ensure that it stands out.

To rise to this challenge, follow the following tips and take on some practical advice to help your marketplace rise to the top!

This is a guest post created for us by Kayleigh Alexandra from MicroStartups.

Introducing Typed & Category-Based Product Attributes for Better Product Catalogs

April 17, 2019

multimerch product attributes blog post header

Specifying product attributes when listing an item allows your sellers to make their products more appealing and more visible to buyers on your marketplace platform.

Attributes are displayed on product pages and used in faceted filters to make it easier for buyers to find the right products.

The upcoming MultiMerch version features a new system of typed, category-based product attributes that I'll cover here.

Sellers, vendors, stores – how do MultiMerch marketplaces work?

March 20, 2019

multimerch seller system blog post header

MultiMerch is an online marketplace platform or a multi-vendor platform – same thing.

This means you can use MultiMerch to build a two-sided marketplace where multiple vendors have their own store fronts and sell their own products.

In this blog post, I'll describe how the seller system works in MultiMerch in a nutshell.

Selling, signup and listing fees in MultiMerch – how do they work?

January 4, 2019

selling signup listing fees blog post header

Having a hard time monetizing your marketplace platform?

We're almost ready to release MultiMerch 8.23 that supports four different fee types:

selling fees
signup fees
product listing or insertion fees
vendor subscriptions

In this post, I'll tell you exactly how you can use different MultiMerch fees and generate revenues from your marketplace platform.

How shipping cost and speed affects conversions across marketplaces

December 4, 2018

shipping cost deliverr blog post header

Today’s e-commerce has changed dramatically from even a few years ago. Modern customers aren’t delighted by fast or free shipping – they expect it.

This is a shift largely driven by Amazon and its huge pushes to deliver products more quickly and cheaply, but it impacts e-commerce as an industry.

Understanding how shipping costs for the customer and total fulfillment speed affects conversion and sales across marketplaces will give you a better basis to understand how, where, and why you should be investing in faster and cheaper shipping.

Mastering shipping in your MultiMerch marketplace

November 21, 2018

mastering shipping modes multimerch

Managing shipping in a two-sided marketplace can be a challenge for you as a new marketplace owner.

With MultiMerch vendor shipping, we've tried to make the process as straightforward as possible.

The upcoming MultiMerch 8.22 release introduces 4 different vendor shipping modes you can use in your marketplace:

flat rate vendor shipping
shipping rates based on cart total
shipping rates based on cart weight
per-product shipping rates

In this blog post, I'll cover how vendor shipping works in MultiMerch and what the new modes look like:

Automate your MultiMerch marketplace via Stripe

September 13, 2018

Stripe Connect is a payment solution for marketplaces that lets you process customer payments to multiple vendors.

It is specifically designed to make your life as an online marketplace owner easier (at least when dealing with payment processing).

Today, we're releasing MultiMerch 8.20 that extends Stripe Connect capabilities to support Direct and Destination charges.

Considering automating your platform with Stripe to build a sustainable business model? Here's what you can do with MultiMerch 8.20 and Stripe:

The Online Marketplace Ecommerce Blog